Frozen
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: One-shot. Kakashi despairs at his inability to tell his feelings to Gai. It seems that happy endings only happen in Icha Icha. Kakashi x Gai. Angst. Now a two-shot: part 2 covers Gai's point of view.
1. Frozen

**Frozen**

* * *

Sometimes, reading Icha Icha was more of a misery than a pleasure. The immersive effect of Jiraiya's storytelling usually distracted Kakashi from real life. Usually, there was nothing more satisfying than sinking into an alternate universe and caring about those characters and their struggles, their victories, and their romances. But sometimes, rather than distracting Kakashi, the story reminded him of all he couldn't have.

Kiuraga, one of twelve main characters, was about to get together with his love. He'd spent 14 volumes of Icha Icha realizing his feelings, their depth, and his need to confess to her in the hopes that she would love him, too.

Kakashi was reading volume 15, a landmark volume of Icha Icha because it contained the first marriage proposal of the story. And though he wasn't about to leave off his Icha Icha in volume 14 – at the height of Kiuraga's agony that Isaki couldn't possibly love him in return – Kakashi was justifiably pensive about reading the chapters contained in volume 15.

Isaki was the strong woman of the story, the self-sufficient warrior who had never been known to take a lover, who wore her hair short under her helmet, and who at the beginning of Icha Icha had been cast as Kiuraga's best friend.

That bore a striking resemblance to Kakashi's best friend, whom he was in love with. The only difference was that Isaki was a woman, and clearly based off of Tsunade.

Kakashi was well aware of Jiraiya's feelings for Tsunade. The character of Isaki could hardly be a surprise, nor was it a surprise that Kiuraga, a sort of fictional version of Jiraiya, was in love with Isaki. And in this fictional world of Sekiheki – a magical land that existed on a continent floating in the sky – Kiuraga and Isaki made sweet, passionate love.

Reminding Kakashi that such sweet, passionate love only happened in fairytales, because Jiraiya hadn't gotten Tsunade, and Kakashi wasn't going to get Gai, either.

It was painful, really.

Kakashi looked up from his book and found he'd wandered to the place he always went when he was in pain. The war memorial.

Visiting the memorials in the shinobi cemetery always dragged the words out of him. His only therapy. The peace of the silence, the bright sunlight, the background rustle of leaves mimicking the ocean…the sense of utter loneliness and isolation. The sense that he was in a tiny world of his own. It didn't matter if he stayed silent or not, here. No one could overhear and judge him.

He looked at the slab of names blankly. Then, uncharacteristically, he turned away and sought out the monument memorializing those lost in the Nine Tails attack instead. He reached out and touched the stone, tracing his fingers over a different name.

Minato had been his confidant. His teacher, but so much more. After his father died, Minato had taken that role, and modeled fatherhood in a way Kakashi never could have expected. A kind, caring, emotionally open father, whose gentle wisdom healed Kakashi's pain. Sakumo had privately been depressed, withdrawn, and cynical. No one Kakashi wanted to turn to for help. Minato had been different. He'd brought a light into Kakashi's life.

And if Kakashi could speak to Minato now, maybe he wouldn't hurt so much. He traced his fingers over the engraved kanji of Minato's name. "I want to tell him. I can't."

A breeze ruffled Kakashi's hair. Eerily, it reminded him of how Minato used to do that when he was still small. If he'd had any confidence about the afterlife, he would have taken that as a sign.

"I can't," Kakashi whispered. "I'm too scared." The words felt like a shuriken stuck in his chest, vibrating and ripping.

_Kiuraga didn't have any trouble telling Isaki. All he needed to know was that he did love her, and then it was all smooth sailing from there._

True, Kiuraga had agonies of doubt. But that slowed him about as much as a boulder rolling downhill was stopped by a dandelion. Kakashi felt betrayed at Jiraiya's lack of realism for once, a trait he usually enjoyed in Icha Icha.

When he was fourteen, he'd confided everything to Minato. Except his growing feelings towards Gai. He hadn't known how to, hadn't known he was _in_ love until Minato was killed, and the person he went to cry on was Gai. Gai had held him all day and all night. Kakashi hadn't given up his apartment, but for a month, he'd lived at Gai's instead. Slept in the same bed. Eaten the same food. And it was only Gai's compassion that had held him together that month. Kakashi wished sometimes he'd never left, that he had the callousness people accused him of having, which could have allowed him to think forcing himself on Gai permanently was okay.

"All I can do is desperately tease him," Kakashi whispered. "If he can't win, if he has to best me at these little games, if he thinks I don't care…then he has to come back." His sinuses burned. "Right?"

Part of Kakashi knew that Gai didn't keep coming back because of the challenges. He knew that it was a game to them both, window dressing for the real relationship that lay underneath.

But he'd never examined what was underneath, because he was terrified of what he'd find.

_Some example I am,_ Kakashi thought bitterly. _See underneath the underneath?_ He was the man with the sharingan, and he was the one being willingly blind.

In the instant Kakashi tried, the same panicked thought always popped up. _What if he really doesn't love me? What if it's true? What if it is just a rivalry? I can't stand that!_

Kakashi flattened his palm against the memorial stone and shut his eyes, desperately communing with something. Anything.

The memorial stone stayed cold under Kakashi's hand. No amount of caressing could turn the words Namikaze Minato into a person. But this one-sided conversation was all Kakashi could get. In the company of a real person, he froze like a deer. On the outside, he was the lazy, apathetic jonin reading a +18 manga in public. On the inside, he was frozen, locked up with anxiety.

Gai was the only person who had the ability to put him at ease, but when his problem was agony over his love for Gai, Gai wasn't an option.


	2. More Than Losing

**Author's Note:** Part 2, Gai's POV.

**More Than Losing**

* * *

Kakashi had always been Gai's dearest friend. Or, that was what Gai liked to think, anyway. He knew he had never been the most popular child – being loud and outspoken about his ninja way seemed somehow to have alienated him from his classmates and genin peers – but he had, at least, caught Kakashi's attention.

Not that Kakashi had been willing to acknowledge that fact.

At first, Kakashi tried very hard to make him go away.

Unfortunately for Kakashi, Gai had had lots of experience with people who wanted him to go away. And that experience continued beyond meeting Kakashi, including the man assigned to be his genin sensei. The old man had repeatedly asked him to go away, in spite of Gai's lengthy explanations that he was part of the team that included Genma and Ebisu, because they were a four person team, with three genin, not two. And eventually the old man had allowed him to stay during training sessions and go on missions with them, in spite of the fact that he never seemed to quite believe Gai belonged.

Gai was excited when his team collided with Team Minato during the Chunin Exam, because that meant that he could show Kakashi how much he'd grown. And he had, he'd taken down Obito easily and proved that surely if Kakashi paid attention to Obito, then he could spare time to pay attention to him, too…

But it had still taken Obito's death to somehow force the issue.

He'd gone to the hospital because he'd heard that Kakashi was injured and he'd wanted to cheer Kakashi up. He'd just heard over the radio that the war was over, and Sandaime was preparing a keynote speech on the subject to be delivered tomorrow at noon.

_Surely,_ he'd thought, _that will cheer Kakashi up, and as soon as Kakashi is well, I can challenge him to a fight and he won't say, he won't say, for once, that he is too busy because of the war to take me seriously. _

Seeing Kakashi with one eye bandaged, strapped to the bed like a mental patient, had been an unpleasant surprise. Gai had entered the room and found Kakashi alone, but it wasn't two minutes before Minato-sensei came in, rested a hand on his shoulder, and explained about Kakashi's condition.

Minato's explanation hadn't included why Kakashi was strapped to the bed.

Gai had pushed, and prodded, and done all of the things he normally did to people who didn't answer his questions, and it worked. Minato was tired, so it worked even faster than Gai's interrogations usually worked.

Minato's voice would ring through Gai's memory forever. _He tried to gouge his eye out._

And it had to be explained to Gai that Minato meant the new eye, the transplanted eye. The one that had been from Obito.

_Kakashi-kun suffered a mental collapse as soon as we got home,_ Minato had sighed. Gai had noticed Minato hadn't looked much better. He was sickly, pale, and had obviously been crying.

Gai had stayed with Kakashi, and come back to stay at Kakashi's side for three months, the time it took for Kakashi to be well enough to go home. Even then, Gai had taken to dogging Kakashi's steps, trailing his friend everywhere. And Kakashi had stopped complaining.

They'd been in the midst of deciding on a challenge when the Kyuubi ripped free from Kushina and went on a rampage. They'd been side-by-side when Kakashi was forced to stand back and watch Minato fight the Kyuubi alone. Had been the only thing keeping Kakashi from collapsing when they all felt Minato die.

Gai had been a physical and emotional, bright green, fast-talking crutch for Kakashi, ever since Minato's death. If Gai missed a day, Kakashi would inevitably slump over on his sofa and stare at the TV, not even watching anything, just looking at the black screen. Gai had found him that way often enough, whenever someone else – usually a well-meaning Genma – told Gai to give Kakashi room to breathe.

Kakashi didn't need room to breathe. He needed someone to keep him from drowning.

After a while – by the time they were twenty-five – Kakashi had gotten a little more stable. Stable enough that Gai didn't sometimes find Kakashi sleeping in the bathtub, stripped down to his boxers with an empty bottle of sake tipped over on the floor.

And Gai thought that was good. It was good that his friend wasn't sneaking out of his grasp and getting drunk, or spending all of his time staring at a TV that wasn't even on when Gai didn't rouse him and make him train.

Now they were twenty-eight, and Kakashi had just lost his first student, and been forced to give the other two away because he couldn't cope with Sasuke defecting…and Gai was terrified that Kakashi's old habits would slip back in.

He wanted Kakashi to move in with him, but Kakashi had told him, "Don't be ridiculous," in that apathetic drawl, and gone back to reading Icha Icha.

Gai wanted to take that as a sign of strength Kakashi hadn't had when Obito died and Minato died. But he was also afraid overestimating his friend would be a terrible mistake. No one had to remind him that Kakashi's father had committed suicide. No one had to spell out for him that a history of suicide coupled with Kakashi's past attempts at self-harm made his friend an extremely delicate person.

So he watched, trailing Kakashi all over the village like he used to.

Kakashi was visiting the memorial stone more again. He'd seen Kakashi do that every time the level of stress in their lives increased. It was a coping mechanism of some kind. Tracing the names inscribed onto the memorial seemed to bring Kakashi a level of peace. It was better than sake. Gai definitely did not want to see Kakashi passed out drunk in the bathtub.

It struck Gai as he watched Kakashi mumble at the memorial stone from his hiding place, not for the first time, that if he were subject to different circumstances, he could have told Kakashi his feelings. If he were a more naïve man, he would come out into the open right now. He'd stroll across to the memorial stone, wrap his arms around Kakashi's waist, and say, _I love you. I always have, Kakashi, and now I'm going to take you home. And we're going to live happily ever after, because that's what rivals do._

But the only people Kakashi loved were here: dead people. People named Minato, Obito, and Rin.

Gai couldn't compete. He'd compete with Kakashi for imaginary points, compete for anything and everything, but he couldn't compete for Kakashi's love. He'd always been a sore loser, but being rejected in favor of dead people would be more than losing.

He didn't want to think about what that might be. Kakashi needed him, and he couldn't afford to be weak, too.


End file.
